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Carat Duchatelet's forgotten Mercedes-Benz limousine

December 12, 2013

The upcoming extra-long-wheelbase Mercedes-BenzS-class, to be unveiled months from now, will be replacing the ill-fated Maybach 62, and its general design will pay homage to the original Mercedes-Benz 600. The 600 was a V8-powered personal limousine that debuted in 1963 and stayed in production until 1981, and was also available in a stretched version known as the 600 Pullman. The car of heads of state and royalty, just a little more than 2,600 examples of the no-expense-spared limousine were made during that time, alongside the regular S-class models.

Mercedes-Benz revisited the basic idea of the 600 with the Maybach 57 and 62, cars that were slated to be badged as Mercedes-Benz Maybachs just a few months prior to the debut of the brand. But roughly a decade before the relaunched Maybach debuted, a number of coachbuilders produced bespoke Mercedes-Benz limousines based on the 1991-1999 W140 Mercedes-Benz S-class. Only one of those personal limousines mirrored the layout of the original 600, with redesigned rear doors and a stretched C-pillar passenger section. And it happened to be the very last Mercedes-Benz limousine that emulated the look of the original 600, at least until the future debut of the unnamed extra-long-wheelbase Mercedes-Benz S-class.

Belgian coachbuilder Carat Duchatelet has been building bespoke armored versions based on Mercedes-Benz chassis since the early 1980s, when the Mercedes-Benz aftermarket tuning company started by Frederick Duchatelet moved into producing 1979-1991 W126 S-class-based stretch limousines. The debut of the W140 S-class in 1991 and the collapse of the Berlin Wall opened up a large number of new markets, and the W140 platform presented new opportunities for the company, which had moved into armoring as its principal source of business.

The Mercedes-Benz W140 S-class by Carat Duchatelet was one of the stealthiest and most elegant personal limousines of the 1990s. Photo by Carat Duchatelet

Carat Duchatelet became a subcontractor for Mercedes-Benz and developed the S600 Pullman six-seat stretch limousine along with the Stuttgart manufacturer, with a long insert from the B-pillar back that bought an extra row of rear-facing conference-style seats for the interior. The S600 Pullman was a popular model with heads of state at the time, and in armored form it tended to cost well over a million dollars. But Carat Duchatelet also made a smaller W140 stretch limousine seen above, where instead of an inserted section after the B-pillar, the rear doors themselves were completely redesigned, and a third side window was added to the C-pillar.

This labor-intensive construction was a complex exercise in coachbuilding, and it yielded a very stealthy personal limousine that was unlike anything that was on the market at the time, save for bespoke limousines made by Mulliner Park Ward based on Rolls-Royce chassis. In some ways, the shorter Carat Duchatelet personal limousine was a more complex car to build than the Pullman, due to this configuration.

Some versions of the W140 stretch by Carat featured rearward facing conference seating, a slightly more snug version of the layout in the W140 Pullman. Photo by Carat Duchatelet

The Carat Duchatelet W140 limousine was stretched by 23.6 inches and featured much longer rear doors manufactured from scratch. The original door shut lines themselves were altered, and a new door frame was created. Customers could choose a relatively unaltered interior layout with executive seats for the back or one with a partition between the driver and the rear passenger compartment. The inclusion of the partition meant that interior space suffered a bit, though it also meant that a specially created dash could be added to the interior, featuring a number of amenities for the rear-seat passengers.

Occasional jump seats could fold out of the rear-seat dash, allowing for two extra rearward facing passengers, or the jump seats could be used as footrests. Of course, a minibar with a wine chiller and folding tables was also offered. This optional layout quickly transformed into a footrest, as well. The inner panels of the doors themselves were redesigned with fold-out cup holders, ashtrays and pockets, and the center console extending from the rear-compartment dash contained cargo bins and a stereo system. As the photos demonstrate, this was a quite elaborate and intricately designed interior, one that wasn't an option even on the standard Maybach 62.

Carat offered this type of limousine with B6-/B7-level ballistic protection, which means that it could withstand multiple hits from NATO 7.62x55mm armor piercing rounds, identical to the level of protection provided in the larger Mercedes-Benz S600 Pullman. Just for reference, there is not a higher level of ballistic protection standard than B7 available for passenger-armored vehicles based on mass-market automobiles.

The Carat Duchatelet W140 stretch competed with the factory BMW L7, which was a slightly less complex personal limousine that featured a short inserted section after the B-pillar. The L7 also offered a partition window, but its slightly shorter overall length did not offer two extra jump seats.

Ultimately, just a couple dozen of Carat's W140 stretch were built. The company's finely crafted machine lost out to cars that were either standard-wheelbase armored sedans or stretched six-passenger models like the Pullman that Carat helped develop for Mercedes-Benz. While other coachbuilders like Brabus Caro and Trasco-Bremen built stretch models based on the W140 chassis, their cars featured relatively simple additions like that of the BMW L7.

The upcoming extra-long-wheelbase Mercedes-Benz S-class will follow the layout of Carat Duchatelet's unique personal limo, as well as the Maybach 62. The rear doors will be entirely new, and the rear door frame and C-pillar will be unique to this model. It is unlikely it will be called the Pullman, as that's a nameplate for a longer six-seat four-door limousine that has been in production since the debut of the W140-based S600 Pullman in the early 1990s, one that Carat took part in developing, and stayed in production until the 2013 W221-body S-class. Mercedes-Benz is expected to reveal a Pullman version of the W222 S-class at some point in 2014 or 2015, likely after the debut of the extra-long-wheelbase S-class.

Carat Security Group continues to build armored cars and limousines based on Mercedes-Benz, Bentley, Rolls-Royce and other chassis into the present day, though it hasn't produced a personal limousine similar to the W140 of the mid-1990s. The design was never followed up on with the next-generation S-class. But it's only a matter of time before Carat debuts its own special versions of the 2014 S-class sedans.